Recipes

This is a thick jam-like gravy with a tamarind base, spiced with a mix of roasted powdered pepper and lentils. Perfect over a bed of hot steaming rice, with an accompaniment of vegetables (kootu) or curry.

This is one of the simplest curries, with minimum ingredients and comes together in literally 10 minutes, after prep. Pairs excellent with rotis. I love to just eat it like a soup. The mild tasting, water-laden lauki/doodhi/sorakai is satisfying in its rustic simplicity. Requires no onion, garlic or complicated masalas.
It is known as bottle gourd in English. Cooks very quickly.

This is the ubiquitous stuffing that goes inside the crispy golden folds of dosai (please don’t call it pancakes). Also a popular side dish for pooris, specifically in the southern parts of India, called poori masal. Favorite of almost anyone, it’s a very simple dish to make.

This recipe is from our friend Gautam, who dabbles in gardening, cooking, baking, grilling, photography, and on the side, is a neurosurgeon! He grows a bunch of varieties of green chilies including some of the hottest varieties, and like any Indian worth his salt, pickles them. I love this pickle and followed his recipe to make my own from my garden produce, as I was running out of his stock! Eyeballed most of the ingredients.

If you asked me what my most favorite snack is, I’d say bajjis! in a heartbeat. And my favorite weather is a breezy, cloudy, midly rainy day (but not so rainy that it’ll disrupt life). Put these two together, and you have the perfect day! It’s been raining for a week now, and I kept resisting frying something, trying to be healthy. But yesterday my resolve crumbled. Plus, I had these peppers I’m growing that were meant for bajjis! They were sad, and begged me to dip them in batter and plunge them in hot oil. Okay that’s going too far, but I did feel I was depriving them of their fateful destiny, and from reaching their full potential. (I resolved to walk extra when the weather got better)

Simple to make, ready in less than 30 minutes, and vegetables, whether fried or not, are still a good choice!